SNEAK PEAK: Go On Pretending by Alina Adams
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Sneak Peek: “Go On Pretending” by Alina Adams
Thank you, Jean, for this opportunity to introduce my May 1, 2025 historical fiction, “Go On Pretending” to “The Book’s Delight” readers.
“Go on Pretending” begins in 1950s New York City, where
Rose Janowitz, a Jewish woman who grew up on the Lower East Side, has her dream
job, producing the radio soap opera, “Guiding Light” under the watchful eye of
Irna Phillips, the (also coincidentally Jewish) woman who invented the entire genre. Rose hires Jonas Cain, an African-American classically
trained Shakespearean actor to play the role of “Guiding Light’s” villain and,
along the way, falls in love with him. They’re forced to keep the relationship
quiet, not just because she’s his boss, but due to the interracial aspect, as
this is pre-Loving v. Virginia and miscegenation is still illegal in parts of
the country. But Rose has a much bigger secret, one that she realizes she needs
to confess to Jonas… up to a point.
Please enjoy this excerpt scene from “Go On
Pretending….
Rose was no innocent, but she was a virgin to the
notion that happiness didn’t have to be complicated. Of course, matters were
complicated. They were more complicated than they had ever been. But, at the
same time, Rose could close Jonas’ apartment door to the world, to jobs, to
nightclubs, to restaurants, to nay-sayers, and it became utterly simple.
There was her, there was him, there was them.
Simple.
The only hurdle still between them, one that Rose
had done her darndest to keep behind the shut door but it kept hammering
incessantly when she least expected it, was the business of Rose’s past – and
how it could affect both their futures.
They were lying in bed, Jonas on his stomach,
Rose’s head propped up on one elbow, tickling her fingers down his back with
her free hand while he smiled sleepily, when she finally gathered up the
courage to say, “I never graduated from high school.”
Jonas rolled over slowly, facing her with a
quizzical expression. “You went to college.”
“I took the test. Got an equivalency.”
The side of his mouth twitched, trying to remain
serious, “If that’s the worst thing you ever did – “
“It isn’t,” Rose cut him off. And the twitch
stilled.
He sat up, back against the headboard. He took
her hand in his, stroking the palm with his thumb. He looked down to meet
Rose’s eyes but, when she looked away, he didn’t push. “What is it?”
“I told you I grew up going to Workmen’s Circle.
Attended their summer camps, sang with the chorus. They’re a social-action
organization. They taught me to stand up for the rights of the oppressed, call
out injustice, fight for freedom. Not just my own, everybody’s.”
“Sounds like a cause I could support,” Jonas said
softly, encouraging her to continue.
“I was seventeen. I was sure I knew everything. I
was sure I knew better. Certainly more than my mother did. Certainly more than
anybody who told me to think my actions through did.”
“What actions?” No judgment, just support.
“I went to Spain. To fight with the Republicans
in the Abraham Lincoln Brigade against the Nationalists.”
It was clearly not what Jonas expected to hear.
“I didn’t really fight,” she admitted. “I arrived
towards the end. We didn’t know how close we were to losing. There were colored
soldiers,” she recalled, a detail Rose hadn’t remembered up till that moment
but suddenly saw as significant.
Jonas nodded, “Langston Hughes wrote about them.
Said he saw no difference between the Nationalists and the men in white hoods.
“Our forces were integrated. Everyone was equal,
men and women, too. Though the one time this all-women anarchist delegation
tried to attend the National Confederation of Labour Congress they were told
their presence would undermine working-class interests….” Rose dropped that
train of thought in favor of, “Workmen’s Circle, it’s a Socialist organization.
Except the Socialist Youth of Spain refused to send women to the front lines.
Anyone who wanted to participate in the fighting had to switch allegiance to
the Communists.”
That last word caught Jonas’ attention. It was
1952, how could it not?
“And that’s what you did?” he asked cautiously.
Rose nodded, swallowing hard.
Jonas exhaled, briefly closing his eyes and
running a hand through his hair. “Then what happened?”
“Then the war ended. I came home.” That sounded
convincing. Nothing to question. It was even mostly true. “Couple of months
later, Stalin signed a pact with Hitler. We had speakers from the American
Communist Party come to Workmen’s Circle to tell us why we should support it,
but I’d had enough. I quit. I went to college and never really looked back.
Well, I did work for WEVD, but that was – it was a soap-opera. It was barely
political. I work for Procter & Gamble now! It doesn’t get more all-American
than that!”
“Does Miss Phillips know?”
“No. The one time somebody mentioned the loyalty
oath to Irna, they ended up slinking out of her office like The Burghers of
Calais.” Jonas should appreciate the Rodin imagery.
“So you’re in no danger.”
“Not at the moment. But who knows what might
happen tomorrow? Phillip Loeb, he was in The
Goldbergs on Broadway, then on television. Red Channels called him a Communist and General Foods insisted
Gertrude Berg fire him or they’d drop their sponsorship. Pert Kelton had to
leave The Honeymooners. Jackie
Gleason covered for her, said it was heart trouble, but she was listed in Red Channels, too. Lucille Ball only got
away with keeping her show because Desi claimed she was too dumb to know what
she was doing when she registered as a Communist.”
“You’ve been keeping a close watch.”
Rose shrugged. “I had to. The Hollywood 10, they
were all writers, all blacklisted.”
“Any colored folks on that list of theirs?”
“Paul Roebson, Lena Horne, Langston Hughes, Harry
Belafonte, Hazel Scott, Canada Lee,” Rose rattled off. She hadn’t realized
she’d been keeping track.
“So we all can’t claim to be too stupid? Hardly
seems fair, seeing as how we’re judged too stupid to do anything else.”
She wondered if Jonas were truly offended, but
his laugh quenched that fear.
“So now that you know, if somebody asks you about
me – “
“If someone asks me about you,” Jonas shifted his
weight to turn towards her, kissing Rose’s shoulder, the crook of her neck, her
collarbone, the base of her throat, murmuring, “I’ll tell them you’re a
beautiful woman, a brilliant writer, and a compassionate human being. That’s
all they’re going to get out of me.”
And that’s all Jonas was going to get out of her.
Because, no matter how smoothly this part went, Rose had no intention of ever
telling anybody what really happened in Spain.
“Go On Pretending” is now available for pre-order at: https://www.historythroughfiction.com/go-on-pretending
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